This answer is more of an example code. All the above answers give good explanations regarding why one should use partial. I will give my observations and use cases about partial.
from functools import partial
def adder(a,b,c):
print('a:{},b:{},c:{}'.format(a,b,c))
ans = a+b+c
print(ans)
partial_adder = partial(adder,1,2)
partial_adder(3) ## now partial_adder is a callable that can take only one argument
Output of the above code should be:
a:1,b:2,c:3
6
Notice that in the above example a new callable was returned that will take parameter (c) as it's argument. Note that it is also the last argument to the function.
args = [1,2]
partial_adder = partial(adder,*args)
partial_adder(3)
Output of the above code is also:
a:1,b:2,c:3
6
Notice that * was used to unpack the non-keyword arguments and the callable returned in terms of which argument it can take is same as above.
Another observation is: Below example demonstrates that partial returns a callable which will take the undeclared parameter (a) as an argument.
def adder(a,b=1,c=2,d=3,e=4):
print('a:{},b:{},c:{},d:{},e:{}'.format(a,b,c,d,e))
ans = a+b+c+d+e
print(ans)
partial_adder = partial(adder,b=10,c=2)
partial_adder(20)
Output of the above code should be:
a:20,b:10,c:2,d:3,e:4
39
Similarly,
kwargs = {'b':10,'c':2}
partial_adder = partial(adder,**kwargs)
partial_adder(20)
Above code prints
a:20,b:10,c:2,d:3,e:4
39
I had to use it when I was using Pool.map_async method from multiprocessing module. You can pass only one argument to the worker function so I had to use partial to make my worker function look like a callable with only one input argument but in reality my worker function had multiple input arguments.